May 26, 2014

In Defense of Criticism

Criticism Is the Sole Salvation From Mental ParalysisHelena P. Blavatsky

The central part of the painting “The
School of Athens”, by Raphael

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An Editorial Note:

Since Athens in ancient Greece, free and intense debate

defines philosophies, esoteric or not. While looking at
some

sectors of the theosophical movement, however, one might

be led to think that quiet routine is a virtue, and
polemics, or

frankness, creates dire problems to “our legitimate
authorities”.

Those who adhere to such a view forgot what theosophy
is

about. They ignore the fact that Life is movement, and
that the

theosophical effort, being probationary, must constantly
challenge

error, within and without itself. The following text
clarifies

the issue.[1]
Explanatory notes will be found at the end of the article.

(Carlos Cardoso Aveline)

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Theosophists and editors of Theosophical periodicals are constantly
warned, by the prudent and the faint-hearted, to beware of giving offence to “authorities”,
whether scientific or social. Public Opinion, they urge, is the most dangerous
of all foes. Criticism of it is fatal, we are told. Criticism can hardly hope
to make the person or subject so discussed amend or become amended. Yet it
gives offence to the many, and makes Theosophists hateful. “Judge not, if thou
wilt not be judged”, is the habitual warning.

It is precisely because Theosophists would
themselves be judged and court impartial criticism, that they begin by
rendering that service to their fellow-men. Mutual criticism is a most healthy
policy, and helps to establish final and definite rules in life - practical,
not merely theoretical. We have had enough of theories. The Bible is full of wholesome advice, yet
few are the Christians who have ever applied any of its ethical injunctions to
their daily lives. If one criticism is hurtful so is another; so also is every
innovation, or even the presentation of some old thing under a new aspect, as
both have necessarily to clash with the views of this or another “authority”. I
maintain, on the contrary, that criticism is the great benefactor of thought in
general; and still more so of those men who never think for themselves but rely
in everything upon acknowledged “authorities” and social routine.

For what is an “authority” upon any
question, after all? No more, really, than a light streaming upon a certain
object through one single, more or less wide, chink, and illuminating it from one side only. Such light, besides
being the faithful reflector of the personal
views of but one man - very often merely that of his special hobby - can
never help in the examination of a question or a subject from all its aspects
and sides. Thus, the authority appealed to will often prove but of little help,
yet the profane, who attempts to present the given question or object under
another aspect and in a different light, is forthwith hooted for his great
audacity. Does he not attempt to upset solid “authorities”, and fly in the face
of respectable and time-honoured routine thought?

Friends and foes! Criticism is the sole
salvation from intellectual stagnation. It is the beneficent goad which
stimulates to life and action - hence to healthy changes - the heavy ruminants
called Routine and Prejudice, in private as in social life. Adverse opinions
are like conflicting winds which brush from the quiet surface of a lake the green
scum that tends to settle upon still waters. If every clear stream of
independent thought, which runs through the field of life outside the old
grooves traced by Public Opinion, had to be arrested and to come to a
standstill, the results would prove very sad. The streams would no longer feed
the common pond called Society, and its waters would become still more stagnant
than they are. Result: it is the most orthodox “authorities” of the social pond
who would be the first to get sucked down still deeper into its ooze and slime.

Things, even as they now stand, present no
very bright outlook as regards progress and social reforms. In this last
quarter of the century it is women alone who have achieved any visible
beneficent progress. Men, in their ferocious egoism and sex-privilege, have
fought hard, but have been defeated on almost every line. Thus, the younger
generations of women look hopeful enough. They will hardly swell the future
ranks of stiff-necked and cruel Mrs. Grundy. [2] Those who to-day lead her no longer invincible battalions on
the war-path, are the older Amazons of respectable society, and her young men,
the male “flowers of evil”, the nocturnal plants that blossom in the hothouses
known as clubs. The Brummels of our modern day have become worse gossips than
the old dowagers ever were in the dawn of our century.

To oppose or criticize such foes, or even
to find the least fault with them, is to commit the one unpardonable social
sin. An Unpopular Philosopher, however, has little to fear, and notes his
thoughts, indifferent to the loudest “war-cry” from those quarters. He examines
his enemies of both sexes with the calm and placid eye of one who has nothing
to lose, and counts the ugly blotches and wrinkles on the “sacred” face of Mrs.
Grundy, as he would count the deadly poisonous flowers on the branches of a
majestic mancenillier[3] - through a telescope from afar. He
will never approach the tree, or rest under its lethal shade. “Thou shalt not
set thyself against the Lord’s anointed”, saith David. But since the “authorities”,
social and scientific, are always the first to break that law, others may
occasionally follow the good example. Besides, the “anointed” ones are not
always those of the Lord; many of them being more of the “self-anointed” sort.

Thus, whenever taken to task for
disrespect to Science and its “authorities”, which the Unpopular Philosopher is
accused of rejecting, he demurs to the statement. To reject the infallibility of a man of Science is not
quite the same as to repudiate his learning. A specialist is one, precisely because he has some one specialty, and
is therefore less reliable in other branches of Science, and even in the
general appreciation of his own subject. Official school Science is based upon
temporary foundations, so far. It will advance upon straight lines so long only
as it is not compelled to deviate from its old grooves, in consequence of fresh
and unexpected discoveries in the fathomless mines of knowledge.

Science is like a railway train which
carries its baggage van from one terminus to the other, and with which no one
except the rail­way officials may interfere. But passengers who travel by the
same train can hardly be prevented from quitting the direct line at fixed
stations, to proceed, if they so like, by diverging roads. They should have
this option, without being taxed with libelling the chief line. To proceed beyond the terminus on horseback, cart
or foot, or even to undertake pioneer work, by cutting entirely new paths
through the great virgin forests and thickets of public ignorance, is their
undoubted prerogative. Other explorers are sure to follow; nor less sure are
they to criticize the newly-cut pathway. They will thus do more good than harm.
For truth, according to an old Belgian proverb, is always the result of
conflicting opinions, like the spark that flies out from the shock of two
flints struck together.

Why should men of learning be always so
inclined to regard Science as their own personal property? Is knowledge a kind
of indivisible family estate, entailed only on the elder sons of Science? Truth
belongs to all, or ought so to belong; excepting always those few special
branches of knowledge which should be preserved ever secret, like those
two-edged weapons that both kill and save. Some philosopher compared knowledge
to a ladder, the top of which was more easily reached by a man unencumbered by
heavy luggage, than by him who has to drag along an enormous bale of old
conventionalities, faded out and dried. Moreover, such a one must look back
every moment, for fear of losing some of his fossils. Is it owing to such extra
weight that so few of them ever reach the summit of the ladder, and that they
affirm there is nothing beyond the
highest rung they have reached? Or is it for the sake of preserving the
old dried-up plants of the Past that they deny the very possibility of any
fresh, living blossoms, on new forms of life, in the Future?

Whatever their answer, without such
optimistic hope in the ever-becoming, life would be little worth living. What
between “authorities”, their fear of, and wrath at the slightest criticism -
each and all of them demanding to be regarded as infallible in their respective
departments - the world threatens to fossilize in its old prejudices and
routine. Fogeyism [4] grins its
skeleton-like sneer at every innovation or new form of thought. In the great
battle of life for the survival of the fittest, each of these forms becomes in
turn the master, and then the tyrant, forcing back all new growth as its own
was checked. But the true Philosopher, however “unpopular”, [5] seeks to grasp the actual life,
which, springing fresh from the inner source of Being, the rock of truth, is
ever moving onward. He feels equal contempt for all the little puddles that
stagnate lazily on the flat and marshy fields of social life.

NOTES:

[1] Original
title of “In Defense of Criticism”: “Literary Jottings - On Criticism,
Authorities, And Other Matters”. Initially signed by “An Unpopular
Philosopher”. Here reproduced from “Theosophical Articles”, H.P. Blavatsky, a
three-volume collection, Theosophy Co., Los Angeles, 1981, volume II, pp.
389-392. First published at “Lucifer”
magazine, London, September 1892. The
word “Lucifer” means “light- bearer” and is an ancient name for the planet “Venus”. It has been distorted by Middle Ages priests
who wanted to dominate people’s minds through fear. (CCA)

[2] Mrs.
Grundy - fictional English character who typifies
the censorship enacted in everyday life by conventional opinion. (CCA)

[3] Mancenillier - a
small tree belonging to the family of the Euphorbiaceae. The word mancenillier comes from the
Spanish term “manzanilla”. (CCA)

[5] When the
present article was first published, H.P.B. signed it with the words “An
Unpopular Philosopher”. (CCA)

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In September 2016, after a careful analysis of the
state of the esoteric movement worldwide, a group of students decided to form
the Independent Lodge of Theosophists,
whose priorities include the building of a better future in the different
dimensions of life.